'We've got a debt to pay': Voices from the battlefield

By Donna Brazile

Updated 1555 GMT (2355 HKT) April 14, 2014

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – President Lyndon B. Johnson shakes hands with civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. after signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The LBJ Presidential Library is hosting a Civil Rights Summit this week to mark the 50th anniversary of the legislation.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – Jackie Robinson, who broke Major League Baseball's color barrier, poses in the dugout with some of his Brooklyn Dodgers teammates during his first game on April 15, 1947.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – Rosa Parks poses for her booking photo after she was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in 1955.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – Students of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, shout insults at Elizabeth Eckford as she walks toward the school building on the first day of school in 1957. Schools in Arkansas integrated races after the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – As part of his training for sit-in protests in 1960, student Virginius Thornton practices not reacting to smoke being blown in his face.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – Freedom Riders sit on a bus during a trip from Montgomery to Jackson, Mississippi, in 1961. The Freedom Riders would brave mobs and endure savage beatings to desegregate interstate travel.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – A black woman and a white woman sit next to each other at a New York City restaurant in 1962.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – A police dog jumps at a 17-year-old civil rights demonstrator in Birmingham, Alabama, on May 3, 1963. The image appeared on the front page of The New York Times the next day.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – Firefighters turn their hoses on demonstrators in Birmingham in July 1963. When civil rights protesters stalled in Birmingham, the city's African-American children took to the streets. Their bravery facing water hoses and dogs riveted the nation.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – King addresses the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech on August 28, 1963.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – People gather on the National Mall during the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – Sarah Jean Collins, 12, lies in bed after being blinded by the dynamite that killed her sister in the bombing of a Birmingham church in September 1963. Four African-American girls were killed in the blast.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – The family of Carol Robertson, a 14-year-old girl killed in the church bombing, attend a graveside service for her in Birmingham on September 17, 1963.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – A 1964 FBI poster seeks information on the whereabouts of Andrew Goodman, James Earl Chaney and Michael Henry Schwerner. The three civil rights workers disappeared in rural Mississippi in the summer of 1964. Their bodies were found 44 days later. They had been tortured before they were murdered.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – Nation Of Islam leader and civil rights activist Malcolm X poses for a portrait in 1965. Malcolm was a symbol of black defiance who ridiculed King's stance on nonviolence.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – The car belonging to Viola Liuzzo sits off the road near Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Liuzzo, a white housewife from Detroit, felt compelled to drive to Selma to help the civil rights movement after seeing demonstrators beaten on television. While driving on a deserted road in the small town one night, Liuzzo's car was run off the road and she was shot to death. Her death showed the nation that the civil rights movement was not just an African-American struggle -- it was an American struggle.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – Memphis sanitation workers hold signs with the slogan "I am a man" during a strike in 1968. Their campaign against discrimination and poor conditions in the workplace brought King to Memphis.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – King lies bleeding at the feet of other civil rights leaders after he was shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – King's widow, Coretta Scott King, and their daughter Yolanda sit in a car on their way to his funeral in Atlanta on April 9, 1968.

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Photos:The civil rights movement in photos

The civil rights movement in photos – U.S. Olympians Tommie Smith, center, and John Carlos raise their fists in protest during the U.S. national anthem, which was being played after Smith won the 200 meters at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.

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Story highlights

Donna Brazile recalls the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act

Four presidents honored civil rights heroes and Lyndon Johnson, who signed act

President Obama called them "warriors for justice"

At the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act, four presidents remembered the battles and honored those who fought to form "a more perfect union" on the path to economic, educational and voting equality.

But, for one of those heroes, it was also a time to pause and acknowledge the progress. And for one president, it was a time to honor another.

The four presidents -- Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama -- led the observances, appropriately, at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin. It was President Johnson who in 1964 secured the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and in 1965, the Voting Rights Act -- the latter eviscerated last year by the Roberts Court.

President Obama thanked "the warriors for justice, the elected officials and community leaders who are here today." Those who ended segregation and ushered in the most significant change in America since the Civil War were indeed, "warriors for justice."

One of the warriors present was Rep. John Lewis who was in his 20s when the battles for Civil Rights were raging across the South, and indeed, all America.

Donna Brazile

Lewis was attacked dozens of times. The bus he was riding was firebombed in Anniston, Alabama. He suffered a fractured skull from a policeman's club on the Selma Bridge and was beaten unconscious in a Montgomery bus station.

It was men and women warriors like Lewis who first moved Americans, and then moved the federal government, to guarantee the basic human rights they demanded. The rights were as simple as ordering a sandwich and drink at a lunch counter, and as profound as being able to vote.

Introducing the President, Lewis said, "President Barack Obama was born into a dangerous and difficult time in American history, a time when people were arrested and taken to jail just for sitting beside each other on the bus."

"When people say nothing has changed, I say come and walk in my shoes, and I will show you change."

President Obama keyed his theme to honor President Johnson. "Because of the civil rights movement, because of the laws that Lyndon Johnson passed, new doors swung open," he said. "I have lived out the promise of LBJ's efforts. ... Michelle has lived out the legacy of those efforts. ... My daughters have lived out the legacy of those efforts."

Doors swung open, Obama said, "not all at once, but they swung open. Not just (for) blacks and whites, but also women and Latinos; and Asians and Native Americans."

"In a time when cynicism is too often passed off as wisdom, it's perhaps easy to conclude that there are limits to change; that we are trapped by our own history; and politics is a fool's errand," he said, adding, "I reject such cynicism."

We "cannot be complacent," he said. "Our rights, our freedoms -- they are not given. They must be won." Obama added, "We remain locked in this same great debate about equality and opportunity."

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Earlier in the week, former President Jimmy Carter struck a similar theme: "We still have gross disparity between black and white people on employment (and) the quality of education," said Carter. "But we feel like, you know, Lyndon Johnson did it -- we don't have to do anything anymore. I think too many people are at ease with the still existing disparity."

Former President George W. Bush, who spoke at the conclusion of the Summit said, "I fear that the soft bigotry of low expectations is returning, and for the sake of America's children, that is something we cannot allow."

Former President Bill Clinton homed in on the erosion of the Voting Rights Act, and partisan divisions. "We all know what this is about: This is a way of restricting the franchise after 50 years of expanding it," Clinton said. "Is this what Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his life for? Is this what Lyndon Johnson employed his legendary skills for?" he asked.

"I am concerned that on this 50th anniversary, these divisions and the lack of a spirit of coming together put us back in the dustbin of old history," Clinton said.

Obama echoed Clinton, saying, "One concern I have sometimes during these moments (is that) from a distance, sometimes ... they seem easy. All the pain and difficulty and struggle and doubt -- all that is rubbed away."

Bush reminded the audience about the importance of education in ensuring equality for all. "It is not a coincidence that many of the defining struggles of the civil rights era -- from Little Rock Central to the University of Mississippi -- took place in educational settings. Those who engage in oppression and exploitation always deny real learning. Those who fight oppression always insist on equal education. Through civil rights laws, we assure justice in the present. Through education, we secure justice for the next generation."

There is still more work to do. More work by my generation, which includes the President. And more work by those coming up now.

Obama exhorted young people especially not to succumb to despair or cynicism because the struggle seems too hard. "We've got a debt to pay," he said. President Johnson "believed that together we can build an America that is more fair, more equal, and more free than the one we inherited. He believed we make our own destiny. And in part because of him, we must believe it as well."